Zed Shaw on Flash - <AUTHOR> http://oppugn.us/posts/1275555292.html

<comment><USER2> Some of it is accurate but some of it sounds like an ignorant child fan-boy ravaging against the PS3.

First, Adobe's bosom buddy isn't Microsoft. Microsoft created a direct competitor to Flash called Silverlight. Adobe didn't intentionally make Flash 10 slower on your computer than Flash 9, just as nVIDIA's latest driver didn't intentionally break my Starcraft 2. Adobe will work with any platform to get Flash running.

I believe Adobe's developers are incompetent. They had a product leading rich content on the web and failed to "finish". All they had to do was make it stable across all operating systems (how many years have they had?). Adobe failed but cursing the technology to the grave seems immature considering what advancements we've made because of it. Like it or not HTML5 cannot completely replace Flash and going backwards in technology will not happen.

"We should be rejoicing at their death because they represent the old internet. The closed fucked up internet that ate people's productivity and innovation" -- seriously, Flash ate productivity and innovation? Did you SEE the web 10 years ago? Why is this getting upvoted?

<comment><USER3> oh c'mon, the post was hilarious. I think the HN community is a little too serious sometimes. I definitely got a chuckle or two reading this. And while not entirely accurate, I think the general points still remain valid.

The HN community reminds me of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, anyone know what I'm talking about?

<comment><USER4> I think the general points have already been repeated to death elsewhere: "flash sucks", "working with proprietary buggy APIs sucks", "filling a post with swearwords makes me sooo alpha male", etc, etc.

Guys, we got the point the first 5 million times. Can we move along?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Flash cookie control:

        alias playFlash='chmod 777 ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/\#SharedObjects'

        alias clearFlash='rm -rf ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/\#SharedObjects/*'

        alias stopFlash='chmod 555 ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/\#SharedObjects'

        alias showFlash='ls -l ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/\#SharedObjects'

        alias .cFlash='cd ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/\#SharedObjects'

<comment><USER6> You probably don't actually want to make files in your home dir world readable,writable, and executable [the chmod 777]

<comment><USER5> Good point. It's just a lazy habit on my laptop I guess.

<comment><USER7> Use +w +x +r (Writable/Exec/Readable by user) and -w -x -r instead of octal. It's shorter and more secure! (You can also prefix with u a or g, e.g. chmod a+x, for user, all, and group, respectively.)

<comment><USER8> Don't forget 'o', for others!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chmod>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anecdote: I can run Hulu fullscreen on my 32" 1080p television from my 4 year old Dell laptop, running Windows XP(!) - a laptop which cost me all of $700 when I bought it. It has 2gb of RAM and an Intel Core Duo processor T2300 (2MB Cache/1.66GHz/667MHz FSB)

Flash can layer sounds, which is something that HTML5 can theoretically do, but if I want to, say, emulate a drum machine, there's so much more I can do in Flash that HTML5 is apparently years from being capable of speedily, let alone capable of doing speedily. Additionally, I imagine it will be some time before there's an HTML5-integrated equivalent to the Flash Media Server which drives so many video sites.

If you can't run Hulu without lag on whatever your current system is, I recommend you seek out a Dell E1505 laptop. It's four years old, mine was $700 when I bought it new (from the Outlet, mind you) so they can't be that expensive now.

</comment><comment><USER10> Couldn't have expressed it better myself.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's impossible to tell if there's any kind of point under all this "harsh" language.

I feel a bit ill after wading through this post. It's like accidentally stumbling upon hate speech. Disappointing that this got so many upvotes on HN.

<comment><USER12> Somebody get some smelling salts & move the lady to that fainting couch. Poor dear just got out of finishing school only to discover that the world isn't entirely made of taffeta dresses and lace doilies. That bad man was brusque, profane, and made reference to Cthulu!

I'll give you this, though: "stumbling upon hate speech" is an innovative way to Godwin a thread.

<comment><USER11> All I'm saying is that I don't understand why he would make his point in this manner.

English is not my native language and I only use the language in work contexts, so my exposure to profanity is pretty much limited to Hollywood output. I'm probably missing something important here.

(Btw -- the title has now been edited to include the author's name, but it wasn't there when I wrote my original comment. If I'd noticed that this rant is by Zed Shaw, I wouldn't have bothered trying to read it in the first place.)

<comment><USER12> Zed's character in this piece (and others) is culturally-specific, so I can see how it would perplex someone from elsewhere. It's easy to imagine veins popping out of his forehead and his face beet-red, but it's actually just a voice for expression, in a "ha-ha, only serious" way.

One could think of it like heavy metal music. From the musical output of some bands, one might think they have serious issues, but if you look deeper you might see bright, engaged, and literate folk - perhaps fans of H.P. Lovecraft & Tolkein - adopting exaggerated characters for their own amusement, a little catharsis, and maybe a groupie or two. While it's not my favorite genre, I don't think anybody in Metallica really feels like a mute, paralyzed paraplegic - I just think somebody liked Johnny Got His Gun.

I personally think that the world would be a boring place if the only way to make a point was with your hands folded politely in your lap. Sure, it's valuable and effective to do so, but to disallow other modes of expression would be like saying that the only legitimate colors to paint with are pastels.

I think Zed is hilarious, but I can see how you might not "get" him. He's a writer. He may not be merely trying to persuade. He might also write to entertain, vent, or just to express.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He has a solid point, but I can't help feeling the cure is going to prove worse than the disease here. Apple blocking flash is like Galadriel taking the ring and crushing Sauron. The reasons it's bad have nothing to do with any redeeming qualities on Flash's part.

</comment><comment><USER14> As a (former) Flash developer I've run into the HTTP header problem and am shocked that they STILL haven't fixed it after all these years.

Flash is also horribly unstable under Linux (especially when dealing with Flex apps).

And yeah, the whole using a web app to set shared object permissions and security policy permissions is a bit ridiculous too. Considering you have to actually _browse to the Adobe website_ to get to it. It makes internal deployments (to devices which shouldn't have internet access) harder than it should be.

I think anyone that has programmed in Flash for a while feels his pain....thank god I'm no longer in that boat.

<comment><USER15> Actually I'm told that the reason flash doesn't get the HTTP headers is actually due to the browser API, not Flash itself. In that case Silverlight shouldn't have access to them either unless it bypasses the browser altogether for communications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> >It works great for them on their Neckbeard 9000 Triple Quad Dual X Neon Nvidia NIOPIATE computer with SSDs in RAID-26 configuration.

That sounds a little more epic than my Core 2 Quad with 4GB of DDR2 and an Nvidia 9800GT, but I can't imagine the Flash performance is any better on The God Box. And Hulu, while it does run alright, definitely leaves something to be desired on every machine I've used it on.

</comment><comment><USER17> What's with all the bitching about Microsoft in an Adobe rant? Maybe a better title would've been "Zed Shaw on what Steve Jobs doesn't approve of"

> Look, I could drag this on, but Adobe fucked themselves over. They actively > spent years shitting on everyone at Apple

I remember before Macs became trendy when the primary reason to buy one was to if you did a lot of graphic design work. If I were Adobe and my plan was to actively shit on Apple then i'd withhold Photoshop from Macs before i'd withhold Flash. I don't think Adobe saw much future in the desktop Linux and Mac platforms, which isn't a stretch considering how little market penetration they had at that time. They were wrong, of course, but that doesn't mean they were going out of their way to say fuck you to Apple or actively trying to shit on them. It was a business decision in the same way Apple nixing Flash on the app store is a business decision.

</comment><comment><USER18> While extremely immature and probably half accurate, I commend the author for speaking his feelings, ignoring political correctness, and sometimes even fact.

I'm not even being sarcastic. To win wars one needs to be motivated. Very entertaining read if not anything else.

<comment><USER2> I bet you commend this poster as well: [http://www.ironstarmovement.com/forum/topics/top-10-reason-w...](http://www.ironstarmovement.com/forum/topics/top-10-reason- why-ps3-sucks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A bunch of hyperbolic crap. But hey, it says "Fuck Flash!", so this is gonna be popular among the HN/reddits/slashdots of the world no matter how much it doesn't stick to reality.</comment>


Understanding Material Design – Part III: Skeuomorphism vs. Flat Design - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@raveeshbhalla/understanding-material-design-7991b1469a63

<comment><USER2> This prompted me to take a few minutes to finally try to see what Material Design is all about; my previous glances at posts resulted in little in the way of understanding. Now I understand why.

I watched some of the Google I/O talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isYZXwaP3Q4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isYZXwaP3Q4)

To me, the people on stage seemed genuinely uneasy at times and well aware that the concepts they were trying to communicate were difficult to get across.

These explanatory posts (all 3) are very well-crafted, if propagandistic. Same information that Google is providing, in more digestible bits.

My impression is that Google is trying to implement an industry-wide paradigm shift away from dense style guides, to a world where good design is signalled by intuition alone (which is referred to indirectly in the talk more than once). They are planning to do this by offloading design decisions from the developers as much as possible and creating an astonishingly homogeneous look and feel across apps. I predict a limited shelf life for this sort of thing. Novelty goes a long way. Mobile devices aren't desktops.

<comment><AUTHOR> Firstly, I'm glad you found the posts well crafted, after spending hours on the documentation, the videos and having actually had the opportunity to talk to Googlers at I/O, I felt it necessary to clear the doubts I've seen most people have.

Regarding the part about creating a homogeneous look, I don't "completely" agree with that, I can understand that being a worry. Google's been quite detailed in terms of what is right, what is wrong from purely a keyline metrics perspective, and if developers follow them very minutely, I can see a situation arising where several apps look very, very similar.

Having said that, I think the core focus of material design is really going to be how different apps use animation in their experience, as well as how well they scale across platforms. Material Design apps should not be judged purely on the basis of a phone app, or a tablet app, or a website, but how a user who uses the app across multiple devices finds the experience.

Offloading design decisions for indie developers, however, could be very useful. Far too many simply haven't cared enough to get their metrics right, for example. Material Design gives them certain rules to follow, which if they follow, might not give them uniqueness but at least the users would find them easy to use.</comment></comment>


How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/8873/ <comment><USER4> How can they call it a parasite?

It's clearly a commensal symbiote: for cats, it assists them in catching prey.

In rats and humans, its changing prevalance helps adjust the relative expression of different behavioral strategies, faster than inheritance alone could.

For example, the risk-taking and increased libido in rats shifts the infected slightly along the K-strategy/r-strategy reproductive spectrum. In some environments that's a win, others a loss, but the T.gondii increases rat behavior diversity, and thus the species' adaptability.

Similarly, its modulating effects on human suspicion, gregariousness, investment in fitness-signalling (clothing), and obedience/trust sometimes help and sometimes hurt, depending on an ever-changing environment.

What if we 'cured' this and found the resulting human populations were less resilient against war, ecological stresses, and rapid technological/cultural change?

(I'm only half joking. And a meta-parasite is making me write apologetics for other parasites. And this entire comment is just a long way of saying "I, for one, welcome our new Toxoplasmosis gondii overlords" without getting immediately downvoted.)

<comment><USER5> Semantics point/question:

The T. gondii, as viewed from the cat's perspective might be a symbiote, but from the rat's perspective, is certainly a parasite, isn't it? The T. gondii is benefiting at the expense of the rat. Do biologists classify things as both simbiotes and parasites?

<comment><USER4> I think some rats also benefit: their adventurousness and increased sexual activity isn't _always_ penalized with death, and even when it is, _female rats prefer the infected male rats_. So even if they live fast and die young, they may leave more offspring.

Whether this is a net benefit at any one time probably depends on lots of things, and especially relative rat/predator populations. Just as human reproductive preferences seem to change in relation to wealth, population density, and life-expectancy.

Regarding semantics, I do think something can be both a symbiote and parasite. When I first learned of 'symbiosis' it was in the context of mutually- beneficial relationships, but it seems the term can be more general. Wikipedia says scientists sometimes disagree whether 'symbiosis' should only be used to describe 'mutualist' relationships (where both benefit) or also 'parasitic' (one benefits and other is harmed) and 'commensal' (one benefits and other neither harmed nor helped) relationships.

I should have used the word 'mutualist' in my above post, as that's what I was intending to imply. But the conjecture is intentionally fuzzy about whether the benefit is to the individual (it perhaps sometimes is) or the species (it perhaps always is, as long as both infection and non-infection are well- distributed).

<comment><USER6> think of it as an agent of accelerated evolution

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For people with cats, some reassuring text:

      Given all the nasty science swirling around this parasite, is
      it time for cat lovers to switch their allegiance to other
      animals?

      Even Flegr would advise against that. Indoor cats pose no
      threat, he says, because they don't carry the parasite. As
      for outdoor cats, they shed the parasite for only three
      weeks of their life, typically when they're young and have
      just begun hunting.

<comment><USER8> hmm not so reassuring...

<comment><USER9> Are you kidding me? Besides the "Indoor cats pose no threat, he says, because they don't carry the parasite", what other kind of reassurance you want?

Not to mention the fact that people seem to live on fine with domestic cats for the last 2,000 years, with no casualties...

<comment><USER10> Of course the author says that! He has cats, he must be infected too!

But seriously, the claim wasn't that the parasite immediately kills people but makes them more disposed towards self-destructive behavior. The fact that, 2000 years after people started living with cats, humanity yet survives isn't really absolute proof to the contrary.

<comment><USER11> Well, article claims that people really have started living with cats (that is, keeping them as pets) since 18th century in France, which is also when schizophrenia started to spread. So yeah, just over a century later and by the looks of it humanity is lucky to still survive!

Imagine how different life would have been now without that crazy infected folk who like dangerous driving and become obsessed with insane ideas. =)

By the way, can anyone clarify—is there a way to detect toxoplasmosis even in latent form? It seems from Wikipedia article that blood tests can't provide reliable results here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Compared with uninfected men, males who had the parasite were more > introverted, suspicious, oblivious to other people's opinions of them, and > inclined to disregard rules. Infected women, on the other hand, presented in > exactly the opposite way: they were more outgoing, trusting, image- > conscious, and rule-abiding than uninfected women.

This reminds me of a lot of cat-people I know. But that might just be selective recall.

</comment><comment><USER13> We have six cats at the house here, hence the username 'nekojima', Japanese for 'cat island'.

I have long suspected a parasitic role (either us or them for attention rather than brain damaging) or an element of craziness in our having so many cats. So far our own scientific analysis has been interrupted by near constant feline requests for attention, food or having to clean a little more than 'normal'.

<comment><USER14> > hence the username 'nekojima', Japanese for 'cat island'.

It's actually 'shima' for island. Not sure if 'jima' works too, but shima is definitely more common.

<comment><USER15> (insert obligatory off-topic warning here)

> It's actually 'shima' for island. Not sure if 'jima' works too, but shima is > definitely more common.

Correct, "island" is _shima_ , but in this case we have a phenomenon in Japanese known as "sequential voicing" (連濁, _rendaku_ ) in which the first syllable of the second word of a compound is changed from an unvoiced consonant to a voiced consonant. This is particularly common when dealing with native Japanese compounds; i.e., compounds using words not derived from the imported Chinese pronunciations of characters. So "island" (島) by itself would be _shima_ , but when used as a suffix, the initial consonant _sh_ becomes voiced to _j_ , and thus _jima_. Another example is "fire" (火), pronounced _hi_ alone, but voiced to _bi_ as the second half of words such as "fireworks" (花火, _hanabi_ ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I loved this talk on Toxo and its effects on freewill by the always incredible Robert Sapolsky.

[http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sapolsky09/sapolsky09_index....](http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sapolsky09/sapolsky09_index.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Sigh - I spent over 2 hours talking with this reporter trying to help her understand the limitations of this guy's studies, but she doesn't seem to have taken on board anything I said... Of course, he could be right and it could also be that the X-rays emanating from a TV really do protect you from malaria. Or it could be that you watch TV indoors and so don't get as many mosquito bites. So, yes, it could be that Toxo causes increased risk-taking ... OR it could be that risk-takers drive their cars more crazily and do things that cause them to be slightly more likely to get infected! There can also be a strong socio-economic bias to infection rates and it could be that people from Czech farms are more likely to be infected from eating vegetables from their cat-feces-infested gardens and more likely to be in a car crash driving home wasted after a Polka 10 miles away in the nearest town in a Lada held together with superglue while their affluent city friends take the bus or drive a BMW and eat vegetables from a mass-production farm in the Ukraine. Etc., etc. On the other hand, the animal data are real (good, controlled experiments) and so it is TEMPTING to believe but the human data are really not good experiments. WAY too many "confounding variables" and no controls. There is one study with US military recruits that found a very slight increase in the likelihood that if you entered the army Toxo-negative and became Toxo- positive while in the army you were ever so slightly to be discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia than someone who stayed Toxo-negative. But the difference was not statistically significant, in my opinion (predict 13 patients would be discharged with schizophrenia in the Toxo-positive group and saw 15 were - NOT a significant difference).

Bottom line, it's crap science and of course he could be right but so could the guy who says the world will end this November...

<comment><USER18> I had a hard time reading this and extracting "the limitations of this guy's studies", do you have any more details?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This dude knows nothing about cats and crazy. Cats make you crazy by pawing your face all night for attention and sleeping all day because they're tired from being awake until dawn.

<comment><USER20> "Cats make you crazy by pawing your face all night for attention"

For a while one of our cats was waking me up by climbing to the top of a wardrobe and then launching itself onto my stomach as I slept from this considerable height - which appears to be the cat equivalent of BASE jumping.

The fact that I endured this behaviour a few times with relative good humour probably indicates that I probably have this mind control parasite!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I can't believe I read through the whole thing - it started off kind of crazy. Still, just as Flegr himself says, the change in behavior is minimal - <USER2> are high that the average individual's life wouldn't be much different whether he/she had the parasite or not.

Still, it's amazing how such a primitive organism can change your brain's function - makes you wonder if there's a parasite that's making people stupid/smart/lazy/etc.

<comment><USER22> Perhaps even consciousness itself is... no. Host. Must. Not. Think. Such. Thoughts.

<comment><USER23> Dennet ("Consciousness explained") does suggest that important parts of what we call "consciousness" are cultural, rather than inborn...

<comment><USER24> Blackmore in her introductions to consciousness suggests something related: that consciousness is an a concept (or illusion, to her) only widely known because it became a social meme.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's a thought. Helen Fisher's research categorises people into four dominant personality types based on levels of neurochemicals: [http://socionist.blogspot.com/2009/04/helen-fishers-types- ex...](http://socionist.blogspot.com/2009/04/helen-fishers-types-explorer- builder.html)

For dopamine, which according to the cat article is elevated in Toxo-infected humans, the associated personality type is "risk-taking, curious, creative, impulsive, optimistic and energetic". Plus the associated decrease in fear response in rats: who does that sound like?

i.e. I wonder what percentage of entrepreneurs are Toxo infected?

<comment><USER26> Here's the question, though: are the risk-taking humans risk-taking because they're infected, or are they infected because they're risk taking. Correlation, unfortunately, doesn't imply causation.

The "fatal attraction to cat urine" studies are somewhat imperfect [1]. I'm friends with a student who's doing similar studies with mice but with better spatial discrimination . The consensus seems to be that while the fear response goes down, the idea that it's attractive to the rodents is more difficult to replicate.

[1] Free at [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1690701/?tool=pu...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1690701/?tool=pubmed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "We evaluated 148 case patients with recent T. gondii infection and 413 control patients. In multivariate analysis, an elevated risk of recent T. gondii infection was associated with the following factors: eating raw ground beef (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 6.67; 95% confidence limits [CLs], 2.09, 21.24; attributable risk [AR], 7%); eating rare lamb (aOR, 8.39; 95% CLs, 3.68, 19.16; AR, 20%); eating locally produced cured, dried, or smoked meat (aOR, 1.97; 95% CLs, 1.18, 3.28; AR, 22%); working with meat (aOR, 3.15; 95% CLs, 1.09, 9.10; AR, 5%); drinking unpasteurized goat's milk (aOR, 5.09; 95% CLs, 1.45, 17.80; AR, 4%); and having 3 or more kittens (aOR, 27.89; 95% CLs, 5.72, 135.86; AR, 10%). Eating raw oysters, clams, or mussels (aOR, 2.22; 95% CLs, 1.07, 4.61; AR, 16%) was significant in a separate model among persons asked this question. Subgroup results are also provided for women and for pregnant women.

Conclusions. In the United States, exposure to certain raw or undercooked foods and exposure to kittens are risk factors for T. gondii infection. Knowledge of these risk factors will help to target prevention efforts." <http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/6/878.full>

</comment><comment><USER28> After reading this article (which was very enjoyable by the way), I am now curious to find out if I myself may be the puppet of some parasite. Is there any way to find this out easily?

</comment><comment><USER29> Radiolab delved into this a bit in their show "Parasites" from a while back. You can listen to the relevant segment under "The Scratch", although I recommend the whole thing, of course:

<http://www.radiolab.org/2009/sep/07/>

</comment><comment><USER30> When and if this research is sufficiently established, people will most likely have an averse (and perhaps unwarrantedly so) attitude to having cats as pets.

Or maybe we will start vaccinating the kitties when they are young enough to start hunting.

<comment><USER31> I guess it depends on how easy and effective treatments are.

Pregnant women already routinely get advice not to clean litter boxes and such, which, anecdotally, sometimes translates into getting rid of the cat.

</comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen There's more information on this parasite on Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis>

Other links on the 'net that I've found are reporting (without any citations) that the parasite can be detected with a blood test (according to wikipedia, not true) and that it cannot be treated (again, according to wikipedia, also not true).

I've seen articles about this parasite pop up over at least the last 5 years. If it was a truly serious problem I'm sure there'd be more information about it. It smells a bit like FUD though.

Can anyone else elaborate on this further?

<comment><USER32> "If it was a truly serious problem I'm sure there'd be more information about it."

That's not really how science/epistemology work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a repost of an earlier submission at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3573447>

(It was probably posted previously before that)

</comment><comment><USER34> The article is very interesting but seems to inflate the fact that if you have a cat you're most likely going to contract T. gondii.

If indoor cats don't carry T. gondii and outdoor cats only carry the parasite for three weeks of their life, isn't the risk of getting this parasite very low since there is only a three week window? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting this. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think T.gondi is the reason kitten videos are so popular on YouTube - <USER3> should look into this - it might be a global pandemic ;)

I want to do an experiment: A/B testing landing page with and without cute kitten photos. I'm sure the one with cats photos will have much higher conversion rate.

<comment><USER36> I also believe baby humans pass on a parasite that influences the parent to take and share voluminous photos and to regard every ounce of vomit from the child as a work of genius. This merits further study.

Hold on, my cat is trying to type sometjfkd a;dsjkf jdfmfddddddsa

fidddddddddddddddx fj

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I love that the scientist at the heart of this story looks like a young Doc Brown

</comment><comment><USER22> Finally! A scientific explanation for <http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=sP4NMoJcFd4> !

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm glad he was smart/sane enough to even think about going to the lab. When something is messing with your mind, can you even think of such logical reasonable things?

<comment><USER22> You've never heard of a mad scientist? You know "Mwahaahahaaa..." and all that.

I'm surprised, it's a total cultural meme.

Probably dates back to Newton and those other alchemists who were really fascinated by the, um, transformative properties of mercury.

<comment><USER39> Seriously, OC probably means this: When you're having seemingly psychological affects/things that are just "part of who you are," it's almost impossible to begin to think that it might be some outside force.

I used to take a medicine which I thought was fine; in the mean time, I developed worse and worse depression, anxiety, and all the time I thought it was a reasonable reaction to stuff in my life. THEN I got paranoid and thought my best friend and boyfriend were out to get me. Finally, something snapped. Finally, I thought, "whoa, this is not me." Turns out it was ALL the medicine. Yes, I had reasons to be depressed, but that's just not my type. Ended the medicine, ended all the side effects.

It only took 3 years and a CRAZY extent of the side effects for me to realize it "wasn't me."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Note how this linked article is from March 2012. And today is only February 10th :-)

<comment><USER41> Print magazines date their online articles to match the print issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> So what's the treatment for toxoplasmosis infection? Can I buy something OTC?

<comment><USER43> No OTCs, but Minocycline looks promising, and it's cheap.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1885421>

Also, Maralone or something similar that uses atovaquone and proguanil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Really hoping alcohol is the cure...

</comment><comment><USER45> Looks like there is something to the "crazy cat lady" after all.

<comment><USER46> Except the supposed behavior alteration in women is increased social activity, attention to appearance, neatness, and aversion to the smell of cat urine.

<comment><USER4> _Average_ alteration.

Given the article's suggestion that some people react differently to infection (as in the schizophrenia/immune-system discussion, and not just by gender), plus the similarity of cat ladies' behavior with infected rats in some dimensions, a link between this parasite and the 'cat lady' archetype is not an outlandish conjecture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I have four cats and they are all indoors, so I guess I'm safe. But even if they weren't indoors, and I was vulnerable to this parasite, it wouldn't matter. I love them too much. The heart overrules the head in this matter.

<comment><USER48> > The heart overrules the head in this matter.

I guess the parasite is working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Ive dated 2 girls with cats, both of them turned out to be very crazy. Cats are a deal breaker for me. Crazy cat lady isn't the exception, its the rule. The ladies will argue about this to no end, don't waste your time, they are crazy. I wish I could send this note back to myself 18 years ago.

<comment><USER50> I was tempted to mock your comment, but instead, out of a general wish for you to be happy even though I don't know you, I would really recommend that you expand the size of your study group.

I'm sure if you think about it you can find some other similarities between these two women that may account for their issues. For example, both of them were apparently attracted to you...

<comment><USER49> Excellent point! I have to try harder to not fall victim to the fallacy of post hoc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> > JAROSLAV FLEGR IS NO KOOK

FUNNY HE SURE LOOKS LIKE ONE

</comment><comment><USER52> My cat is so self reliant I love any attention he gives me.

But then again, I raised him.

But, WTF, cat stories on Hacker News? I don't know what to say!

<comment><USER53> Maybe you should read the linked article before commenting on it- it goes well beyond just cats ;)</comment></comment>


Linux Kernel Module Example: Rickroll - <AUTHOR> http://maitesin.github.io//Module_prank/ <comment><USER2> This would be a fun idea if it weren't overrideing open. What happens when I open a file called "3" (the author assumes that ever file ends with a . And 3 char ext)</comment>


Ask HN: Do you have examples of larger companies using static site generators? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently looking into the viability of using a static site generator (GatsybyJS) to provide a PWA-type experience for a multi-locale CMS driven site.
The content will be maintained using a CMS, and the site will be regenerated and re-deployed on each publish. Any transactional requests will be serviced by a custom API-driven backend system.
Aside from performance and scalability advantages, I like the extra layer of security provided by removing dynamic-access to the CMS.  I also like the level of control provided by combining code and content within each discrete build artifact.
In order to help make my case, it would be really useful to reference examples of larger companies that have successfully used this approach. Conversely, any stories about why this approach could fail would be equally useful.
Best
Luke <comment><USER2> Good job! We see many orgs adopting this approach for the same reasons you mentioned (disclaimer: we build a CMS for these sites [https://forestry.io](https://forestry.io)).

The healthcare.gov site might be a good comparison for your team. It was a large legacy-CMS site when it launched. It had a lot of performance problems so they migrated to Jekyll which solved everything. Here's a quick video from one of the guys describing the migration: [https://www.msnbc.com/all- in/watch/the-nerds-who-saved-obama...](https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the- nerds-who-saved-obamacare-175808579562)

Also, Kyle Rush worked on the original Obama site (Jekyll) and shares insights here in this video. He attributes their success to the fact that their front- end devs were able to A/B test the site multiple times per day to increase the donations. It's loaded with good arguments to move to a static platform. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia8vsuiXiL0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia8vsuiXiL0)

If you're curious to see some build-time benchmarks for Jekyll/Hugo, check out this (from our team) [https://forestry.io/blog/hugo-vs-jekyll- benchmark/](https://forestry.io/blog/hugo-vs-jekyll-benchmark/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm moving all my WP/Static stuff to a SSG and am incredibly interested in knowing the same... I know the Vue docs are generated using a SSG, and all of Segment's stuff too... but I would be very interested to know other companies

</comment><comment><USER4> This is effectively how most large orgs use WordPress. There's aggressive caching that stores static versions of each page.

It's unusual for high-traffic sites to dynamically generate every page. For WordPress, the trigger is sometimes "on first visit" instead of "on publish", but otherwise it's a good analogy for what you're doing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Smashing mag is running static. :) [https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/03/16/smashing-magazine- ju...](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/03/16/smashing-magazine-just- got-10x-faster/)</comment>


Show HN: CircuitVerse – Online Digital Circuit Simulator - <AUTHOR> https://circuitverse.org/ <comment><USER2> It looks nice and easy to use but I can't seem to get something as basic as a two-NOR flip-flop to work:

[https://i.imgur.com/V6yXpMl.png](https://i.imgur.com/V6yXpMl.png)

The gates themselves in isolation work fine, but connecting them together doesn't. I even tried "bootstrapping" the circuit by breaking the storage loop and setting the two gates' inputs so they're all consistent first before connecting them together, but then when I disconnect the bootstraps it immediately returns to the above arrangement.

IMHO having trouble with something like that means the simulation engine is not quite usable yet...

Edit: the above circuit works fine in Logisim. Also, as another minor tangent, I think the flip-flop is so much easier to understand when it's drawn to emphasise the storage loop, i.e. the two NORs essentially become inverters when one of their inputs is 0, and they act in positive feedback to hold the bit value; why almost every other diagram insists on crossing the wires is perplexing, since it only serves to confuse and complicate.

<comment><USER3> Please look at the examples to see what the simulator engine is capable off. As for designing the simulator engine to solve these kind of cyclic circuits, and advice on how to do it?

<comment><USER2> _As for designing the simulator engine to solve these kind of cyclic circuits, and advice on how to do it?_

The general idea is to iterate while changes are still propagating through the circuit; here's some pseudocode:

        changedNets.add(initial stimulus)
        for each net in changedNets
            changedNets.remove(net)
            for each node in nodes(net)
                for each output in outputs(node)
                    evaluate output
                    if output changed
                        changedNets.add(output)
            if state cycle detected
                break

The above algorithm reasonably accurately models what happens in a real digital circuit: changes propagate through each node until the whole circuit reaches a steady state. You can even add visualisations to show each step of the propagation as it takes place, and more elaborate versions can take into account different propagation delays (i.e. the output of each node can change at a different time relative to its input, so you process them in a queue ordered by that.)

To use my example circuit, with both inputs low initially: when one of the inputs of one NOR is set high, in the next step the output goes low, then the other NOR's output goes high, and the input of the first NOR goes high. This doesn't change anything else, so the circuit reaches equilibrium. When you set that input back down, the NOR already has the other input high, so it doesn't change state and equilibrium is already reached.

Cycle detection can be as simple as a hardcoded iteration count, or something a bit more accurate and useful:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_detection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_detection)

Interesting fact: A true cycle-detection algorithm will theoretically let you simulate a whole CPU running any Turing-complete program, if you clock it with an "inherently unstable" ring oscillator...

<comment><USER3> Thank you! Not sure if this is within my ability to implement but will give a definite try

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Man, this brings me back to the days of experimenting with Redstone in Minecraft. I only ever got as far as a 4-bit ALU, but it really helped set me up for my circuit and logic classes in college. I wouldn't trade those days for anything.

</comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of [http://everycircuit.com/app/](http://everycircuit.com/app/)

<comment><USER6> Another good one is [http://www.falstad.com/circuit](http://www.falstad.com/circuit). I remember using this quite a bit to double check homework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Couple suggestions, that would make it fun for youtube videos:

1\. Let the user change the background, and add letters/text.

2\. Ability to add sound effects

3\. Rube golberg style components that could be triggered by the circuit.

4\. Render/Simulate real leds.

5\. Add a gallery ... do you have a gallery of circuits others created?

6\. Also, if you could save and output a video file of the circuit. It would make it easier to include for things like youtube videos, and possibly do animated logos and marquees using this simulator.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the tips! 1) Feature 4 definitely is a must. 2) Feature 5, not sure what would work well. 3) Feature 6, No idea what is Rube golberg style! 4) Feature 7, not sure what you mean but there are LEDs - analog, digital and RGB LEDs

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love tinkering with circuit simulators - this one seems really cool too, great work! Just wondering, from a programmer perspective: how do you simulate electricity? If you model a circuit in CircuitVerse, how similar would the results be to a real-world version?

<comment><USER2> This one doesn't "simulate electricity" per se; it's a digital simulator, which means it evaluates the output of each node based on its inputs, and propagates the changes as necessary. The core principle is a discrete event simulator:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_event_simulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_event_simulation)

 _If you model a circuit in CircuitVerse, how similar would the results be to a real-world version?_

As long as the gate delays and fanin/fanout are considered, the results would be logically valid. For simulation of more analogue effects (e.g. what happens if you connect the outputs of two gates together, and one tries to pull it high and the other low?) something like SPICE is necessary:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPICE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPICE)

...and since that involves numerical solutions to nonlinear differential equations, is at least an order of magnitude slower.

<comment><USER9> It's possible to combine event-driven simulation (for digital) and nonlinear differential equation based simulation (for analog) within the same simulator. The simulation engine can be smart enough to mix the two efficiently. As a toy model, consider this 4-bit counter plus DAC (click "Simulate" at the bottom):

[https://www.circuitlab.com/editor/53xa3r/](https://www.circuitlab.com/editor/53xa3r/)

The simulation loop is _both_ event driven (when CLK1 flips state every 0.5 seconds), propagating those changes through combinatorial gates, _and_ analog, simulating the op-amp to create a simple digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Bridging the analog and digital sides within the simulator is tricky, but not impossible.

You are correct that if there were not both event-driven and analog simulation intermixed, and we simply simulated all the digital gates with their analog implementations in MOSFETs, that simulation would be at least an order of magnitude slower -- probably far worse!

(Disclosure: I built CircuitLab's simulation engine.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is really slick! Very nice job. I realize that this is primarily a tool for teachers but I would love to see more public tutorials and examples. I realize there are many tutorials on the internet but I haven't seen any with such an interactive design interface like this. Might anyone else have some suggestion(tutorials plus editor) for such resources?

<comment><USER3> Thank you, yes the team is working on this. Idea is a full documentation for people who don't have much knowledge of individual elements + community blog where community write stuff

<comment><USER10> Wow, that's great to hear! I hope you post something here when that becomes available. Cheers.

<comment><USER3> Can we post it? I heard you cannot post the same thing again ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Man, I would _love_ to have a circuit simulator that can emulate valves (12AX7, EL84, EL34) correctly and accurately. It's so hard for me to experiment with guitar amp designs because most of the time you literally have to build it to figure out how it sounds.

</comment><comment><USER12> Completely borked on mobile (Safari); views are squished with main circuit view being impossible to make out details.

<comment><USER3> Its really meant to be used on a computer. Mobile compatibility coming soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This was makes from folks at IIT Bangalore. That is pretty cool.

<comment><USER3> Thank you! but we are from IIIT Bangalore xD</comment></comment>


Angel Boot Camp: an AngelConf-inspired event in Boston - <AUTHOR> http://seedboston.com/angelbootcamp/

<comment><USER2> Thrilled to the startup scene in Boston getting some love. Sign this angel investor up!

<comment><USER3> Are you back in Boston now? I had heard Reddit moved to SanFran; I guess I assumed you stayed there post departure.

<comment><USER2> I'm in Armenia at the moment, actually :) but I did move to SF post- acquisition (with a stop in NY on the way) per the deal. I'm probably moving back to NY when I get States-side, though. Cambridge was definitely on the table, but alas, Brooklyn won.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It looks like a great event, and wish the best to all attendees. Boston has everything it needs for a strong tech community, but for too long has focused on big-companies/enterprise. See: Wang

I'm a bit confused about the split nature of the event.. If it's Angel investor training camp, why are they demoing companies? Isn't it a bit early for that? I assume most people would want time to think over the ideas before making any investment decisions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question.

1) The demo session is separate and optional. The last thing I want to do is make the angels, particularly the prospective ones, feel captive. But for some, it will whet their appetite.

2) It's an opportunity to get some non-TechStars companies in front of an interesting crowd of investors.

3) It might actually be interesting to some of the angels coming in from out of town who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to see these companies.

That said, I should make it clearer that the demo session is entirely optional.

<comment><USER3> Fair points, I hope people stick around for it. If nothing else, it gives them experience in the sort of pitches they might be getting, once they put their name out there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is all manner of awesome. There's no such thing as having _too_ much statup energy in Boston.

</comment><comment><USER5> Excellent initiative - lets get the energy flowing!

</comment><comment><USER6> Great catalyst for increased angel activity in Boston!</comment>


Ask HN: Why are papers still published as PDFs? - <AUTHOR> Why don't we use some standardized machine readable format? E.g. markdown with frontmatter would seem like a great choice! <comment><USER2> Some journals will publish a separate file in XML, specially if they are open access. As for why PDFs, I think the answers are:

1\. P (portable): you can access it offline, store it locally and annotate (something that researchers do extensively for key articles) 2\. design: despite all possibilities with html, including html5, flex, interactive graphics and apps, pdf still allows you to have a much more granular control over design, and looks matter 3\. tradition - old habits die hard

Specifically in relation to markdown, although some of its flavors are semantic, and that it also allows for absolutely awesome things such as R markdown (Rmd), tagging specific article sections is still complicated and cumbersome. Including div tags inside markdown has a number of issues. This is all to say that although there is a lot of people writing articles in Rmd, it is not an ideal solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> Papers are meant to be read by people, not machines.</comment>


Ask HN: GeoDNS load balancing vs. Anycast IP? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, I'm on my way to understand how CDNs (Netlify, Cloudfront, fly.io, Firebase hosting...) work, but I can't find good resources on some details like the following one:
GeoDNS load balancing vs Anycast IP?
Is one better? Why choose one over the other? What about costs maintaining the infrastructure? <comment><USER2> There are tradeoffs. I work on Fly.io, so I can tell you why we chose to use anycast vs DNS for traffic direction.

DNS for traffic direction actually starts with anycast. When you send a DNS lookup, it's typically to an IP announced from multiple locations. The internet does its thing and the nearest DNS server sends a response.

10-15 years ago, conventional wisdom said only DNS should happen over anycast. Routes _can_ change between packets and that will break stateful TCP connections. In practice, this isn't a problem. Routes are stable enough to keep connections alive.

In theory, Anycast is ideal. But it's hard to build out, you can't do it on top of various clouds, and for a 60+ region footprint you end up having to do your own networking and manage agreements with transit providers.

It's also prone to weird routing issues if you don't have a good way to monitor it. Almost everyone who's run an anycast setup has had a "why are people in Chicago getting routed through Tokyo from Dallas?" moment.

DNS is quite a bit simpler for the provider, you can hand out IPs to EC2/Google Cloud/random VPS provider. And routing to one IP in one place is typically pretty good. DNS also lets you rely on more than just anycast for targeting, you can do things like detect end user IPs and be smarter about where you point them.

We chose anycast because we wanted to give users dedicated IPs addresses. This is useful for non-http protocols and helps isolate their workloads from other customers if there's a DDoS. It's a much cleaner end user experience. As a bonus, it gives us a lot of fun power with ipv6 addresses.

I've heard AWS CloudFront was going to be all anycast until the 11th hour, and they switched to DNS targeting because they were getting more reliable results. This was a long time ago, though, I have a feeling DNS over HTTPs and other privacy measure are going to make DNS targeting less accurate in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the detailed reply! I read all your (very interesting) comments on fly.io's posts here on HN before asking :)</comment></comment>


No Shirt, No Swipe, No Service - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/business/2018/07/cashless-stores-and-restaurants-are-on-the-rise-to-the-delight-of-credit-card-companies.html <comment><USER2> I use a credit card for 95%+ of my transactions. At the same time, I'm scared of a cashless future. As the article mentions, cash transactions are one of the last vestiges of privacy that we have. A future where the US looks like China, where all of your transactions are visible, is not something I want to see.

Additionally, cash is an equalizer for the unbanked/underbanked. Financial institutions take advantage of and punish their least profitable customers. Those who can barely afford overdraft fees, monthly checking account fees, etc. are the only ones who are forced to pay them.

Yes, blockchain technologies can solve some of these problems, but there will always be those who are outside of the banking system, lose/don't have a smartphone, etc. Greenbacks are tangible to the person standing in line to cash a paycheck at Western Union - Ethereum isn't.

<comment><USER3> You're afraid of the loss of privacy, then immediately suggest block chain as a solution to a related problem.

<comment><USER4> It's ridiculous on the face of it (especially as they suggest Ethereum), but there are in fact blockchains that preserve the anonymity of the people involved in the transaction. I'm a little sad these distinctions aren't more well-known.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To echo what others have said, cashless systems -- especially in fast food chains -- are a quick way to discriminate against a whole population of the underbanked. I was in Dos Toros (burrito chain mentioned early in the article) about a month ago, and the woman in line ahead of me didn't have a card. She got so embarrassed at the register despite having ample cash to pay for her meal. I paid for her with my card, she paid me in cash, and all was fine, but no one walked away from that experience feeling good about it. It was such a unnecessary emotional stress on the woman. I feel weird returning to Dos Toros knowing this policy is creating these experiences for customers.

<comment><USER6> The question to me is, why does this population exist in such great numbers? I understand not having good credit, but having access to a checking account with a debit card doesn't seem like it should be insurmountable.

The last checking account I opened just took $5 to open the account (technically a "membership" fee at a credit union). No any proof of employment, income, ar assets was needed [0], and I left with a debit card that day. Total time involvement was maybe 15 minutes.

[0] I just re-checked and all that is needed is SSN, Government ID, and the initial deposit (as low as $5, can be paid with cash, debit, credit, or check)

<comment><USER7> How long ago?

Some banks are doing these Pre-paid-ish cards now. I know Chase has Liquid, other banks may call it something else. For the most part, it functions mostly like a debit card backed by an actual checking account. But the requirements are far lower. They don't give a flying fuck who you are. You can even get checks to access the funds on the card.

And for like 90% of the time, you'll never realize you don't actually have a checking account. You won't realize that your money isn't technically backed by the bank. Then that 10% of the time will make your life inconvenient.

So I'd say that access to a card-based payment method doesn't seem insurmountable. But an actual checking account could still be out of the reach of some people.

<comment><USER8> I also opened an account at a credit union less than a year ago. $5 was enough for a checking and saving account, though I had to wait a few days for my debit card to be mailed. I needed proof of residence and ID, but no proof of income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing that Neuromancer had, but we never got, was credsticks.

I want a fee-free electronic wallet that is anonymous.

Also, we really need a law saying that the credit card companies (and others in the toolchain) can't use our data for anything but payment processing. I'm sick of being tracked by my transactions.

<comment><USER10> Well, it's easy to write "credsticks" into a novel, but rather hard to actually implement them. How would they work? The closest thing we have are probably physical Bitcoins, but there you need to trust the issuer not to have a copy of the private keys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Of course you can rationalize that 3% is a reasonable cost and approximately a wash compared to the expense of dealing with cash. But if you're a small coffe house, and sell a $3.00 coffee, and are paying a typical 2.9% + $0.30 per charge, that $0.30 is _ten percent_ of your sale. That's a huge cost.

Transaction fees need to come way down for plastic to beat cash on small sales.

<comment><USER2> An even more extreme example would be a grocery store, whose overall profit margins are only 1-3%.

<comment><USER6> Where'd you get that data? I looked up Albertson's and see they have a 43% gross margin and a 23% net margin: [https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/financial- highlights/...](https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/financial- highlights/ABSP.WA)

<comment><USER2> Your link is to Asseco, a company on the Poland stock exchange. Albertson's reported a _negative_ net income in its S1 filing [0]

Industry average of net income before taxes and net profit after taxes is 1-3% [1]

Independent grocers report net profit of 0.98% [2]

[0] [https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/albertsons- compa...](https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/albertsons-companies- inc-970028-78908?tab=financials)

[1] [https://www.fmi.org/our-research/supermarket- facts/grocery-s...](https://www.fmi.org/our-research/supermarket- facts/grocery-store-chains-net-profit)

[2] [http://www.nationalgrocers.org/docs/default-source/0--- defau...](http://www.nationalgrocers.org/docs/default-source/0---default- library/2017-independent-grocers-financial-survey-highlights.pdf?sfvrsn=2)

<comment><USER6> You are right - not sure how that happened, but it is too late to edit/delete my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Having seen the FB+Google interpretation of privacy, and the few times Venmo with their public feed have cropped up here, I'll be one of the last to abandon cash. I use it for most things that aren't online.

That's despite my whole career being in tech and once thinking such views were the preserve of the tinfoil hat wearers.

Most of the upsides are for the companies, the potential downsides are for the consumers. I don't much like that balance for a tiny bit more convenience.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure if I'm more worried about the privacy implications, or that of a future where a Visa/MC duopoly collects a tax on all retail.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't really understand the american need for a credit card.

In germany, I pay almost everything either in cash or via bank transfer, usually pull. I got a prepaid card a while ago, mostly to pay for american services (seriously, I only ever pay to american corporations with it). My debit card (EC card) is almost universal and directly connected to the bank account, no credit needed.

CC is barely supported, EC is a lot better in terms of coverage. Even then I usually apologize when using the card for anything below 100€ or so at my local supermarket.

I don't see much reason to go CC or EC fully, I always keep some cash in my wallet, not too much but enough to hold me over for a week. If I need more I go to the Bank's ATM and get more. Easy.

Cash-free payment would also be fairly illegal, a business must accept cash payments (though a limit of 50 coins is there, notes are unrestricted) for any purchase in person (online businesses don't have to IIRC).

<comment><USER15> In the US, credit card transactions are reversed in case of fraud (no questions asked, super easy), but if someone lifts your pin and empties your bank account over debit, you're on your own. This actually makes it more dangerous to use debit vs running it as credit.

Also while you don't want to take on debt you can't pay, there's nothing too complex about debt and credit. Businesses all largely do their accounting like that, and if you really zoom out, all money is a system of debt and credit: the $20 note in my pocket is credit from my company, since I gave them my labor, they owed me. My company in turn was owed by one of its customers for services my company offered. The customer might have gotten money from their company, and so on.

<comment><USER4> The reason you think debt is good/acceptable is largely cultural. This definitely isn't the norm in other parts (or even most of) the world.

<comment><USER15> Absolutely. I meant to make that point when I said "In the US..." since the parent poster said they didn't understand why Americans favor CC over debit cards. I thus gave the reasoning. Had we in America been given the same given circumstances as in Germany I'm sure we would be using debit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Relevant: MasterCard mines data for marketers ([https://www.ft.com/content/089f7cd0-16f2-11e2-b1df-00144feab...](https://www.ft.com/content/089f7cd0-16f2-11e2-b1df-00144feabdc0))

> MasterCard is analysing transaction data to help marketers direct targeted > advertising at consumers, after launching a controversial initiative to make > money from its vast database of retail purchases.

Using cash is currently the only way to opt out of this kind of tracking. Being credit card-only is also being anti-consumer-privacy.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think the federal government should start using FDIC as a stick here. It could be fairly straightforward: if you want to be an FDIC member, you must offer basic banking. In particular, you must offer anyone who is legally in the US a free checking account. The terms must be more or less standardized. No arbitration clause, no limit on class-action lawsuits, no check deposit fees, no in-network ATM fees, no under-minimum fees, no overdraft fees. If a bank wants to participate, it should be required to offer _banking_.

<comment><USER7> Eh. They do offer banking. But banks make their money investing your money.

Also, I think "no overdraft fees" is just as wrong as overly punitive overdraft fees. If there were no overdraft fees, credit cards and small loans just wouldn't be a thing. Just overdraft your account and treat it as an interest free loan.

When you overdraft, you are no longer dealing with _your_ money. You're dealing with someone else's money.

<comment><USER18> Banks could easily simply reject overdrafts instead of allowing them while charging fees.

<comment><USER7> Not if I write a check. And from what I recall, when you make a purchase, they don't check against your projected balance at that time, but your actual balance.

So if I have $100 in my account and a pending debit of $50, if I try to make a purchase of $60, it'll get approved because I have $100 in my account.

Now, there are potential things it could do, like treat pending debits like cleared debits. I mean, when I check my balance on my app, it shows the balance with the pending transactions accounted for.

And that does prevent overdrafts from ATMs and debit cards, but there are other debits to the account that could cause overdraft.

It's practically a no-win scenario. If I have an automatic payment to my electric company and I don't have the funds in my account to pay it, I'm fucked no matter which way you look at it. Either I overdraft or my electricity gets shut off due to non-payment.

<comment><USER19> Banks don't have to accept overdrafts on checks either. That's what happened when someone says that a check "bounced". The person you wrote the check to won't be pleased because they don't get their money, but the account won't get overdrafted.

Allowing overdrafts because of pending debits is also just a decision that the bank makes. They don't have to do that.

<comment><USER7> I mean, when you really look at it, banks aren't really up to speed with the speed of information these days.

A lot of these things that shouldn't be issues are issues because they're still operating as if there are still people who are managing most of this and physical checks and credit slips are being passed around.

<comment><USER19> None of these scenarios require them to allow overdrafts. Even operating by passing physical checks around does not make allowing overdrafts necessary.

Refusing to honor checks drawn against accounts with insufficient funds has been around for ages, even when everything actually was managed by passing around physical checks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here's a weird question. Why hasn't the U.S. Government made an electronic cash platform with zero transaction fees yet? This should be something that falls under the treasury, it would help cut down on fraud and provide a backbone for small businesses and large businesses alike. Being able to pay debts is basic infrastructure for an economy and transaction fees are a giant tax on small businesses and large businesses alike.

<comment><USER9> There is at least a kernel of this idea in a national postal bank.[0]

[0] [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2014...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2014/08/postal_banking_already_worked_in_the_usa_and_it_will_work_again.html)

<comment><USER21> In Italy the national post service (which also doubles as a bank) offers dirt cheap Visa Electron debit cards called Postepay (no recurring fee, 5€ una tantum for the card, 1€ fee everytime you deposit money into the card), and the minimum age for requesting one is 14. This fostered some competition from other banks which started to offer products with similar prices and even more features (like the ability to send or receive wire transfers).

The national student card (which can be used to obtain discounts at museums and other cultural places) now also doubles up as a Postepay, so now basically every kid owns a free debit card that can use physically or online as he wants.

Something like this can really speed up card's adoption while avoiding discrimination and in fact this is what I've seen since I was a kid and I had to borrow my dad's card: now all my little cousins own their own little yellow debit card in their name and even use it often in their daily life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Where I live (Beijing, China) is far ahead:

\- Most (or maybe all) beggars accept mobile payment by WeChat and/or AliPay

\- I cannot recall any time in the past year where a shop, fruit stall or street vendor could not accept mobile payment

\- There is a high-end food court nearby where none of the restaurants accept cash. If you can't pay by card/mobile, you need to go to a special counter on the ground floor, and exchange cash for some type of voucher

\- My haircuts cost 40 RMB (about 6 USD). I tried to pay with a 100 RMB note, expecting a 50 and a 10 in change, of which I would give the 10 back as a tip. The barber struggled to find the right change, as it's so uncommon for people to pay with cash. So I paid via WeChat, and handed him some extra cash for a tip.

<comment><USER11> My barber takes cash only. It's caught me out a few times. He has a mobile phone, not sure why he's not set up with Square or something similar I'd think he'd make up for the costs with more business.

<comment><USER23> My barber has a location next to several ATMs. I cannot see imagine a situation where he would start accepting cards. I never see anyone come in for a haircut, ask if they take cards, and then walk out and not come back because they don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This article burys the lede -- from the last paragraph:

Take the overdraft fee, a punishment for desperate or careless customers that netted banks $15 billion in 2016. As many as half of overdraft fees aren't assessed at an ATM, where customers can see their balance, but at the point of sale—debit card transactions at the counters of shops and restaurants. And the majority of overdraft fees, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported in 2014, came on transactions of $24 or under. Not people stretching to make a big purchase, in other words. Just trying to get lunch.

Those fees are a big source of revenue for the banks. Nothing about convenience for the customer.

<comment><USER7> Do they still do the thing where they structure debits to maximize penalties?

Say you have $100 in your account and 5 pending transactions: $6, $12, $1, $30, and $95. In that chronological order. The bank clears the $95 first, then the $6 which overdrafts you, then the rest, overdrafting you 3 more times. Whereas if they processed chronologically, you'd only overdraft the $95.

Regardless, the person whose account it is does bear some responsibility for overdrafting, even for lunch.

<comment><USER25> My bank actually orders transactions to make it so that I avoid the overdraft fees. If I get paid one day and also make a debit that would overdraft my account if the payment didn't clear first, they will place the payment first then the debit.

<comment><USER7> That's good of them. I mean, that's just good customer service and they'll probably keep you as a customer for far longer by not nickel and diming you at every chance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I just prefer cash because it's easier to keep me to a weekly budget. And, because it's weekly, I'm not walking around with a terribly big wad (I'm not crazy).

The privacy benefits of cash are a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

</comment><comment><USER27> I travel to the US regularly, trying to use a foreign credit card there (especially to buy gas - what is my zip code?) is a real pain - unlike the rest of the western world the US is far from being able to go cashless

<comment><USER28> _unlike the rest of the western world the US is far from being able to go cashless_

That's a good thing. As people are learning in other countries like Sweden.

<comment><USER29> It was a little strange, I was in Stockholm for two weeks and would have not have seen a single paper bill except for the glance I caught of one as a older man got in an argument with a bar owner, who "made it right" by quickly handing him back some cash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> No cash, no sale.

Privacy is a big deal to me. Plus downtime. Cash always works.

Handling it is sometimes a PITA, but I must say we have a long way to go before electronic systems work well universally.

Ordinary people are confused by them, and there are many janky, ultra cheapo type readers out there.

For me personally, I leave my mobile unconnected to any payment system. I don't need or want that.

I will and do use cards, but it is not very often.

<comment><USER31> I think cash can fail: when they have no change!

<comment><USER30> Good call. That is a failure mode.

Very glad I agreed "always" needed to be qualified. The crowd here is sharp, and we benefit mutually from it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It feels to me like we're moving away from cards back to cash in the last decade:

\- Gas stations offering cash discounts

\- Stores requiring minimum purchases for cards

\- Restaurants adding a service fee to use a card

I don't think I every came upon these three items a decade ago, and now they seem standard.

<comment><USER7> Before they were structured as "convenience fees". You could buy with a card, but they'd charge a small fee that was either a percentage of the total or a flat rate.

Minimum purchase amounts were way more common when debit cards were becoming a thing.

Basically, you'll find these things mostly in poorer places nowadays where even the store/restaurant owners are struggling and those card fees add up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I noticed the "credit cards only" sign at Dos Toros for the first time yesterday. One of the things the sign says is cashless allows "more time for coaching" which I hope means training their employees? Coaching seemed like a strange word choice.

</comment><comment><USER34> Fees rising in 5, 4, 3....</comment>


The Surprising Surge of Andrew Yang - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/22/andrew-yang-2020-president-profile-227631 <comment><AUTHOR> Seems quite interesting to me that he's speaking up about the issue of automation.</comment>


Show HN: AdminJS, the Backend-Agnostic Administration Framework - <AUTHOR> http://adminjs.com <comment><USER2> I'd say that the JS world does need one of these.

There haven't really been any admin panels in the javascript world to my knowledge that are far beyond the "weekend project" phase. (Please note that I phrased that strongly, because I would love to find out I was simply overlooking a capable contender).

For a wide swath of jobs where one might be tasked with providing minimum necessary cms/admin functionality, the Rails ecosystem excels, with ActiveAdmin[1] and more recently RailsAdmin[2] both strong contenders. Both offer out-of-the-box integration with authentication/authorization frameworks like Devise and CanCan, image/file upload, etc.

I want that in Javascript.

Not because I think that admin panels are such a great thing, but just because especially doing lots of contracting and agency work -- you're going to need them sometimes. You just are.

If you were making a product, maybe you'd turn your nose up at an admin panel (suspect security, not performant), but they're a force multiplier when you have very limited 'I need to be able to manage data X' requirements for a project, and don't want to limit your future options or get bogged down building interfaces only two humans will ever see.

I very specifically want great Javascript admin panels to proliferate, because I want to be able to do some of those quick projects in node.js, and admin panels are such a selling point of Rails at most agencies. :)

\---- [1] [http://www.activeadmin.info/](http://www.activeadmin.info/) [2] [https://github.com/sferik/rails_admin](https://github.com/sferik/rails_admin)

<comment><USER3> I believe one of the reasons why there haven't been any for JavaScript or Node.js is because nothing is standardized, apart from possibly express and connect.

Authentication and authorization is yet to be standardized. This is the big part of an admin backend. Also, because there's no standard ORM, data store, or even schema, it's really hard to get something completely agnostic. You'd have to present a boat load of configurations for it to work, but then you wouldn't achieve "working right out-of-the-box."

<comment><USER2> Yeah -- I was expressly comparing to Rails, which has had a kind of de facto standardizing effect.

And in addition to not having an ActiveRecord-style de facto standard interface for CRUD, and having a much wilder profusion of datastores than the SQL/almost-first-class-citizen-Mongo in much of RailsLand, the node.js community is pulled in a lot of different directions because of Real-Time.

What's the future of ORMs in a real-time world? Projects like Derby/Racer are a fascinating/messy glimpse into what kinds of forces are shaping the data layer.

Look at how much harder simple things like validation/authorization are when you're dealing with an OT engine that doesn't understand schemas, and which do its job necessarily lives half in Redis and half in Mongo, using the ShareDB api ...

Node.js has a lot of wonderful excuses not to have an admin panel; most of them are related to why node is awesome.

That being said, I hope we get some admin panels. :) Passport.js is a decent Devise standin, for instance, and there are a lot more ORM/ODM options now than there were two years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the perfect case for hypermedia in the RESTful sense.

Rich Hickey recently gave one of his talks[1] where at one point he offhandedly mentioned that hypermedia (which gives URIs for related HTTP resources, with some link-like metadata) doesn't make sense for APIs because APIs don't have human "drivers" that can read the link text and make meaningful sense of what relations actually mean in the domain model.

I think the genius of RESTful hypermedia, though, could really come through in a system like this. How else do you show relations? Last time I checked, RailsAdmin can't do much for you here except provide the resource ID as a link to that resource's table and row.

As a benign example, imagine a guest-party admin page. What today would look like "Guest: 'Pitt, Brad', Party: '43'", tomorrow could be be "Guest: 'Pitt, Brad', Party: 'Pitt-Jolie'" with a link to '/parties/43'.

I sense that developers (or at least Crockford[2]?) don't want JSON to become overloaded with XML equivalents like XML schemas and metaschemas and XSLT...but think of what we could do!

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROor6_NGIWU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROor6_NGIWU)

[2] [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Heretical-Open- Source](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Heretical-Open-Source) ?

<comment><USER5> Json-ld takes this even further, it also supports linking data across multiple domains.

[http://json-ld.org/](http://json-ld.org/)

<comment><USER4> I'll also mention HAL, which is spec'd in both JSON and XML and has been serving me quite well.

[http://stateless.co/hal_specification.html](http://stateless.co/hal_specification.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't browse the site on my iphone(news.yc, chrome & safari), it locks up during render.

<comment><USER7> Same on iPad, though after a minute or two (!) or so it finally begins to work. It has probably something to do with that 100000 row table on the landing page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a bit sad for the front-end JS community that despite using one of the most comprehensive client frameworks in Ember.js, the author of this admin panel still felt the need to swap in a non-native data plugin ([http://epf.io/](http://epf.io/)).

<comment><USER9> What does non-native mean here? All of the persistence options for Ember (Ember Data, Ember Model, EPF) very intentionally don't come bundled in Ember core. Not sure what you're trying to point out here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://www.jtable.org/](http://www.jtable.org/) is another similar product we have used before.

</comment><comment><USER11> Don't visit this site on a mobile device. Something is terribly, terribly wrong. I just spent 10 minutes trying to get my phone back into a usable state. The page loads about a tenth then causes the browser to be unresponsive. Killing Safari multiple times didn't help and I even had to force restart 2x.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the heads up, we're looking into it

<comment><USER11> Awesome. I'm taking a look at the framework from a regular machine now. Looks interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You don't have _any_ description on what this actually _is_ , other than "The Backend-Agnostic Administration Framework".

Can you please at least describe the features before you get into installation?

</comment><comment><USER14> For a second I thought your "new" view was broken, but I realized it was because I had scrolled over in the table before clicking new. Looks like you need a scrollLeft(0) somewhere in there.

</comment><comment><USER15> it's boring to implement the ORM again in the client side

</comment><comment><USER16> Two things: When I click on an ID in the example, I can't get back except for using the browser back button. Also, the EPF link tries to send me to epif.io.

</comment><comment><USER9> Congrats to the badasses at GroupTalent. This looks great!

</comment><comment><USER17> Great work if it is what I think it is though I'm not totally sure what this is. Can you please elaborate? Any usecases would be awesome!

</comment><comment><USER18> Beyond the fact that this is super useful, it's also a great example of how to build and structure an Ember app.

</comment><comment><USER19> very cool - would love to see an actual implementation of this. might just use it for my own CRM

</comment><comment><USER20> looks great seems to crash safari on iphone 4

<comment><USER12> I noticed that too, we're looking into it</comment></comment>


Global Outage? - <AUTHOR> We're seeing some issues with Tier 1 providers. Our own network which has Zayo as upstream. Zayo has issues. Getting into AWS seems slow. Anyone else seeing this? <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like east coast, midwest and Seattle we're seeing issues. Downdetector is showing some spikes e.g. sprint has a big spike of reports in the past few mins. Comcast too. We're still investigating.

<comment><USER2> Global == America

<comment><USER3> Global != America

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A global outage of what exactly?

</comment><comment><USER5> Same Mr. Mark.</comment>


Show HN: Gitstarred [TAKE 2] - Get GitHub stars in seconds - <AUTHOR> https://www.gitstarred.com/?hn2 <comment><USER2> GitHub stars have no meaning anyway. Stuff like this will make that obvious and make people stop comparing and judging software by the number of stars they have on GitHub.

If GitHub were serious about stars they should limit the number of stars each user could give based on some criteria like the number of stars they had previously earned, or some other clever algorithm.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok. Ok. This version now has more github repros to choose from! Yes I know some people _hate_ the idea, but, it's just for fun. No this weekend project wont change how github works, or de-value github's star system.

<comment><AUTHOR> 375 stars given out so far!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Visitors beware: the website linked is trying to extract personal data from your browser, by using canvas data and other techniques.

Question for the author, why build this? Doesn't this give less meaning to stars on GitHub? If I would use this to star random repositories and then have bunch of random stars on my own repository, what's the value?</comment>


Ask HN: Small Offices Transitioning to Working from Home - <AUTHOR> Hi all, I'm sure you guys are getting a little COVID-19 fatigue as I am. However, I would like to ask for tips on minimizing disruption while transitioning to most people working from home. Any advice on an organization level or even a personal level would be appreciated! Stay safe out there! <comment><USER2> Hi everyone, I just like you goose847 and I've also been working at home since the corona virus was found and it ruined everything. To make it easier to work at home, I do these things:

-I made my room look like an office, and I threw away the distractions, you know, like ps4 :) or something like that.

-When I'm working I try to stay away from any news and just focus on my work.

-At home, try not to get into discussions that you know are long; these days talking about Corona virus can be one of those dangerous and endless debates.

-Schedule a time for your work, for example start at 8am and finish at 5pm

And for the last tip: When you work remotely you need to work harder and stay in touch with your manager and explain what you have done. This is because when your manager does not see you, he constantly thinks that you are not working, so you should try to build trust between you and your manager.

I hope this situation ends soon. be safe</comment>


Ask HN: I could really use some help and/or advice - <AUTHOR> Hello Hacker News Community, I'm very hesitant to write this post, but I'm at my wits end. I'm living in the western US, and am in my late 20's. For the last couple of years, I've been rejected from what feels like hundreds of jobs and come in second place about a dozen times. I have an extreme visual impairment. Not quite blind, so I've found it difficult to get assistance from government agencies. Transportation is a huge issue, and I ultimately can't even apply for many jobs because of driving requirements and other problems relating to terrible vision. Unfortunately, moving to a better place (like the Bay Area, Portland or Seattle) isn't an option due to expenses. Most IT jobs here require driving, so they're out.
As a result of this, I have been doing any work I can find available online. This includes writing work, transcription (which I just started trying to break into), and even small coding jobs. I've done some terrible jobs in writing and coding--creating product reviews for things I've never used, and other 1 cent-and-below writing assignments. I've done basic content scrapers and other stuff that I'm pretty sure is just used for spam. In the past, I've also done general IT work and other such tasks.
I'm not asking for handouts. But would like to know if anyone around here may have any work for someone like me. I'm literally up for any task (aside from design, for obvious reasons), and I'll work my ass off for you.
My hope is to find enough work to sustain me, and save up a bit for business lisence fees as I start iOS app development and start work on some website ideas.
If anyone has gone through anything similar or just has some general advice I'd appreciate any words of wisdom. Working from home, I don't socialize, and would also just appreciate some email exchange or any other interesting talk.
Feeling so lousy for such a length of time has been really tough, so I'm just trying to reach out to a community that has given me a lot of inspiration and hope. I share a love of computers and technology that I know many here have.
Thank you all for reading. I hope that this post isn't inappropriate for HN.
My email address is in my profile if anyone wants to get in touch. <comment><USER2> I have a different medical condition which leaves me visually impaired, among other things, and I no longer drive. I answered a similar question back in June elsewhere:

[http://ask.metafilter.com/217676/Moved-back-home- depressed-W...](http://ask.metafilter.com/217676/Moved-back-home-depressed- Where-do-I-go-now#3143333)

I did freelance work online earlier this year of the sort you describe. It was inadequate to my needs and felt like a trap. I am currently getting public assistance and working on developing my websites as my only hope of a long term, real solution.

Feel free to email me.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have no short term advice, sorry.

An observation: given your description of recent history, it might be best for you if you ran your own business. In other words, create your own job. Maybe that's freelancing, maybe running a service, or maybe something not even internet or tech related.

Maybe iOS apps will get you that, if you're lucky or really good, but I think most people don't make much on apps. If you do, great, not trying to discourage you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Creating my own job is a great way of putting it. I've been trying the freelancing thing, but the market is crowded for new people and I think I'm still refining my skills.

As far as non-tech stuff goes, general IT and computing work has been my entire job history. So I think I'd be better off sticking with that, but I'm up for considering anything.

Thanks for the reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was thinking something along the lines of a portfolio of work or LinkedIn profile to get a better sense of your skills/identity. I actually have a scraping project related to a nonprofit grants prospecting startup and wanted to see if you would be a good fit for some work.

</comment><comment><USER4> Could you provide more info? I have no idea whether you're legit or a Nigerian scammer.

<comment><USER5> I think as long as he doesn't ask you for 50 grand to be paid by Western Union to an African country it's safe to assume that he is not a scammer.

<comment><USER4> I think scammers, even the ones in Nigeria, use a wide variety of tactics. I think it's prudent to be wary in a situation like this, where the OP is explicitly looking to offer services for money in an unusual situation in what will likely be an unconventional transaction.</comment></comment></comment>


English Queries over Databases - <AUTHOR> http://www.cio.com/article/113400/English_Queries_Only/1

<comment><USER2> _"... Natural language query technology is underused ..."_

Because language itself is plastic, evolves and changes meaning. Users may ask a clear logical question and phrase it with language that may totally miss the restricted, non-plastic language domain of the data they want to query. [0]

[0] Bower, Bruce, Shifty Talk: Probing the process of word evolution

<http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20071013/fob2.asp>

<comment><AUTHOR> And this is why techniques for rapid authoring of NLIs are so crucial. And why the approach should not be based on idealizations of languages, but rather on ad hoc phrasal patterns.

<comment><USER2> " _... techniques for rapid authoring of NLIs ..."_

Haven't heard of this. How do you do this? Any cites?

<comment><AUTHOR> Coming soon... I promise.

The actual idea is simple. Natural language as you correctly point out is beyond any clean/perfect theory. Besides it's constantly changing.

An admin needs to constantly patch an NLI system to achieve high recall (e.g. over 90% of the reasonable questions posed can be answered) and high precision (e.g. over 90% of those questions that are answered are answered correctly).

In all cases in which the system answers, it must paraphrase the query back to the user so that they understand if they were misunderstood. Of course any user will always be able to ask a question that the NLI will fail on. For example asking an inventory database "what's the meaning of life" will not lead to an intelligent response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _Users, vendors and analysts agree that though little training is required, the problem with English language query tools is the users, not the software._

This quote in the end tells how great the current products are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I have used English Query and its pretty bad. But when I tried it out several years ago I knew we could make something a lot better. So we did.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWio8bHq4wQ> <http://www.anaphoric.com></comment></comment>


Show HN: There is a bot for that - <AUTHOR> https://thereisabotforthat.com <comment><USER2> how is this different from ifttt?</comment>


Nginx Server Configs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-nginx

<comment><USER2> What are we supposed to be looking at here?

The config (there is only one) in the linked repository is fairly.. sparse (although the headers in the conf directory are more useful).

There are 6 outstanding pull requests, so it doesn't even look like it is being maintained.

Nice idea, but this implementation needs some work.

<comment><USER3> I think the meat is here: [https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs- nginx/tree/master/con...](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs- nginx/tree/master/conf)

<comment><USER2> Yep, hence _" although the headers in the conf directory are more useful"_

Still not a lot to see though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check this one [https://github.com/Umkus/nginx- boilerplate](https://github.com/Umkus/nginx-boilerplate)

</comment><comment><USER5> This config file looks like a bad idea:

[https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs- nginx/blob/master/con...](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs- nginx/blob/master/conf/cross-domain-ajax.conf)

        # Cross domain AJAX requests
        add_header "Access-Control-Allow-Origin" "*";

Wouldn't this open up a site to CSRF form field stealing attacks?

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks interesting and it may be useful if it gets around and is completed and maintained, especially for the new users of nginx.

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't this similar to Debian nginx default configuration?

</comment><comment><USER8> 403 Forbidden Request forbidden by administrative rules.</comment>


Metro and WinRT: Too early to call, but I'm paying close attention - <AUTHOR> http://www.pseale.com/blog/MetroAndWinRTTooEarlyToCallButImPayingCloseAttention.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> Microsoft UI:Win32/MFC - WinForms - WPF - Sliverlight - WinRT ?

Which technology does MS Office use ? Which one will MS Office 2015 use ?

If you want to create a word or excel document in the future, will you use a tablet with Metro or "classic desktop" with a mouse and keyboard ?</comment>


SocketCluster – A scalable realtime engine for Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/SocketCluster/socketcluster

<comment><USER2> Wow! How does this compare to socket.io being used in a project running on different nodes / cores?

<comment><USER3> As far as I know, in order to get similar functionality from socket.io you'd have to run it in websocket-only mode in order to use proper load-balancing, use an adapter like socket.io-redis for cross-node messaging and channel subscription / broadcasting.

It looks like SocketCkuster does this plus add another layer of managed load- balancing and handshaking, i.e it's designed around being clustered rather than socket.io which seems to be designed for single server.

I'd love to hear if this is correct and see some performance comparisons of SocketCluster vs Socket.io configured similarly (as above).

<comment><USER4> Does that mean that I could have any node send a socket message to any client now?</comment></comment></comment>


Empirical Software Engineering - <AUTHOR> http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/2011/6/empirical-software-engineering/1

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, submit form wouldn't let me use the printer version for some reason:

[http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.13845,y.2011,no.6...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.13845,y.2011,no.6,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx)</comment>